


Passed Down Like Folk Songs, Our Love Lasts So Long

by Breakingthetide



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27484534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breakingthetide/pseuds/Breakingthetide
Summary: After the events of season 7 of Agents of Shield, Daisy Johnson decides to use time travel to her advantage and right a wrong, save soul, heal a wound, a maybe just maybe, get a happy ending of her own.
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Grant Ward
Comments: 43
Kudos: 81





	Passed Down Like Folk Songs, Our Love Lasts So Long

_‘’You’ve got ghosts haunting you’’._

Regret tastes like ice, salt and blood. You think you’ve swallowed, sweated and spit it out enough over the years that it no longer clings to your tongue, coats the roof of your mouth anymore. And for the most part it doesn’t, you smile, laugh, love as the years go on without any worry clouding your memories. You’re content to go to sleep in an empty bed, to have your hands empty, to wake up and shower alone, stare out a window and be at peace with your road and how long you’ve traveled to get there.

But sometimes, sometimes when you’re applying gauze to a scarlet covered wound or wrapping bruised and bloody knuckles, when you’re in the middle of a fight and get your form wrong or level your finger on a trigger of a gun, that regret crawls up the back of your throat. And you stop for a moment, think of _him_ , what he’d say about all of this, who you are now, the silver gauntlets on your wrists and the fear in your heart. 

You wonder what could have been, who he would have turned out to be if the world wasn’t so cruel, if you didn’t put four bullets in his chest and called him a monster. If he never went to that alien planet all alone, if you extended an olive branch down in that basement instead of a knife to his wrists, the thoughts spin and twirl down a drain over and over until you go to sleep. And when you dream sometimes they’re full of haunting memories. 

A pink dress his hands on your shoulders, a longing look in the middle of the afternoon you pretend not to notice, the sun illuminating a pair of whiskey eyes you’ve never seen in anyone else. Fingers brushing against yours, a smile, a rare laugh, the feel of those cheekbones in the palm of your hands, a bar in Ireland, a kiss in a storage closet. And then just as quick as it came, the happiness shatters into dust and hatred takes its place.

A kiss of what could have been on a couch, red smeared against tan skin, the feel of stubble against your cheeks, hands. And then the truth reveals itself that’ll rip you apart for years to come. Another kiss full of lies, betrayal and deceit and he buys it, that smile he gives you will live in your head far longer than you’ll ever admit. And a part of you wants it, wants the arms around you to be true, craves the warmth in his gaze when he stares at you as the sun starts to rise.

A diner filled with false smiles where he finally understood he lost, you, the hope he was looking for, the redemption you represented slipping away. The fight on a home in the sky you’ll never look at the same way again, where you told him you’d never understand him. When you didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth, only to find as the years passed he wasn’t lying, not once, and the guilt consumes you. 

Vault D consisted of bitter sharp words as you spit them at him, poison consumes every sentence, every hard look you give him while he still looks at you as if you’re the sun. Even when you tell him he’s better off dead, but you don’t mean it, not really. The next time you see him he’s keeping his promise one moment, then bleeding out on the ground as you run past, the gun in your hand still smoking. He doesn’t blame you, never will, and in the darkness when you’re all alone, you hate yourself for it.

Even if he deserved it, you think for a long time you killed him and relief is not the feeling that starts to choke you. A hallway is the next place for your overdue meeting, and you had no idea he was breathing, much less working with your father figure to bring you home safely until you round the corner and stop. Pause as he stands there staring at you, and all you thought of in that moment is where things went wrong, how different and broken the team has been since he left. 

And that you miss him, even though everyone says you shouldn’t. You see him again later and show him the person you became after you left him on that floor, the power in your veins and instead of crucifying or casting you out the way Shield did when they first found out, he accepts you without question. Still looks at you the same way he always has, and you yearn for just one moment that things were different. That he was the person you thought he was and none of this ever happened. 

But then he’s gone and you find yourself in the middle of a war, it won’t be until later that you realize you did the exact same thing you shot him for. Fought against Shield because of a strong parental influence, chose a different side because you thought you were doing the right thing, and then you lose everything you were trying to hold onto. Your parents disappear, one of them dead, the other not remembering you at all, the people you fought so hard to find are gone faster than you can blink.

So you cut your hair, change your name, bury the person you used to be in a field of daises, or you try to anyway. But all that trauma, all the chaos and heartbreak only makes you stronger, you move on to a boy with blonde hair and an easy smile. You lie to yourself and say he’s enough, you pretend you’re in love and lying to yourself never gets any easier. You don’t see _him_ again though, only hear whispers of a kind of cruelty you never thought he was capable of. 

You reveal to Coulson the hidden depths of your heart and just how much you’ve thought about Grant Ward and everything he’s done, and though you’ll never forgive him, you understand him. 

_‘’Someday you’ll understand’’._

You have discovered he was right about so many things and so were you.

_‘’I am not a good man Skye’’. ‘’Yes you are’’._

But you never get the chance to tell him any of this, because the same irony and cruelty that took your parents away, takes Ward as well. He never got a shot at redemption he deserved, never saw your short hair or called you by your new name, he died thinking you were still Skye, still the girl on the Bus he once knew. That sits with you for a while, the way his heart stopped and he never met Daisy, never heard the words you’d been dying to tell him for months and months.

Tragedy after tragedy strikes after that, it’s a never ending cycle of losing the ones you love, losing yourself. And soon you can’t even remember who you were before all of this, before Shield, these powers, before Grant Ward and John Garrett pulled the rug out from underneath you. So you dye your hair, paint your nails black, hide from the people you once called family because the loss, the grief is too much.

But as time goes on like it always does, you heal. Flowers grow back instead of thorns, you find yourself again, you smile and laugh, and then another stumble comes along in the form of the Framework. You wake to find Grant Ward half naked in bed and while you see him as an enemy for one second, you quickly come to realize he’s not the man you once knew. It all comes full circle, the universe allowing you a second chance to tell him everything you couldn’t before.

In the Framework he joined Hydra to protect his Skye and even though you try to prepare him for her anger at his double agent status, he brushes it off. Says they’ll get it through it and for a moment you’re jealous, of Skye, of what she has, just how much Ward loves her. And you hate yourself and him because when the roles were reversed back home, you crucified him, and yet this Grant Ward only has patience, love and understanding for his Hydra partner.

The last time you ever see him you say everything you ever wanted, that you didn’t totally understand who Grant Ward was until you stumbled upon this version of him, that there was some good in him all along. And once you walk out that door and fight your way back to the real world, you admit to yourself in the middle of the night, that you loved him. You loved Grant Ward once and didn’t help him when he needed it, shot instead of saved him, and that guilt rears its head all over again.

But again, time as it always does, passes and you heal. Weeks turn into months, then years, you grow and laugh, fight and cry, people live, people die, you bleed and scar, hug Coulson who you never see again. Fitz dies and reappears, you bleach your hair, win battle after battle, fights mean nothing to you now and you keep going, sometimes hearing _his_ voice in your head when you feel as if you can’t rise again.

May dies too and you wonder if you’re cursed because every original member of your team is dead except for Simmons, so you cling to hear and keep trying to be the hero everyone says you are. And then time travel is introduced, Coulson returns, you find out you have a sister who doesn’t understand that she’s on the wrong side, so you save her like you should have saved Ward. John Garrett makes an appearance and Shield saves him before it all goes bad, so you hope somewhere out there Ward escaped that man’s clutches.

You meet Daniel Sousa who is so kind and has a heart of gold, you try to carve yourself into his side, feel something with your mouth pressed against his own, but it doesn’t work out so you decide to stay friends. You get a second chance with your mother who dies again anyway and that puts a gaping hole in your soul, one that will never truly be filled. And at the end of all things you save the world, the work is done, this long fight you’ve been in for nearly ten years is finally over with.

So here you stand with your team you met so many years ago when the world seemed bright and shiny, full of endless possibilities. You were all different people back then, only you and Simmons remain alive and in the same bodies you had back then. Fitz is from the past, Coulson and May are LMD’s, and Ward, the missing piece to puzzle that makes up their family, has been gone for so long there has always been a hole where he used to be, where he should be.

You vow to get him back, to have one less ghost haunting you, to have any lingering regrets stored away. Because in all the years since one thing has been true, he deserved a better life, better people to help him, and not everything was his fault.

*

_May 12_ _ th _ _, 2015_

Time travel is a tricky thing, people wish for it on starts and pennies, it’s fickle in the way it glides and operates. One wrong move and you could destroy everything, or in this case, Daisy Johnson is hoping to improve, to save someone instead of condemning them. To right a very soaked in gasoline and lit match wrong, that Simmons tried to talk her out of but she didn’t listen. How could she not take advantage of this situation when they have time travel at their feet? Why not save a soul who died too soon with bitterness and hatred in their heart?

Isn’t that what Coulson stands for anyway, second chances? They didn’t grace Ward with one before, but maybe she can now, maybe it’s not too late. The bar is smoky when she walks in, nearly vacant except a group of men in the back, the bartender, and one very lonely body on a stool, hunched over and she can tell by the slump of the shoulders they are wearing grief like a second skin. Daisy relates to that more than anyone, letting a death eat and claw and destroy you.

She wanted to go back before Kara died, Agent 33 that Shield failed too, another body, another regret to line up with all the others. But they didn’t get the date exactly right, so this is all she has to work with, Ward dealing with accidently killing his girlfriend courtesy of May, and injured from a fight with Bobbi. What happened with Morse was one of those things that kept her up at night, and while Daisy never forgave him for it, she understood his perception of right and wrong was warped.

He genuinely thought he was helping Kara heal in what happened to her by torturing Bobbi, who sold her out to Hydra. When this happened back home Daisy was furious but now she gets it, hates that she couldn’t rescue him from this kind of heartbreak, and Bobbi from this kind of pain. She stares at the back of his head for a moment, remembers that it’s been years since she saw him last, six or seven, whereas for Grant it’s technically only been a few weeks since he laid eyes on her.

When they went to Antarctica to rescue Lincoln and Simmons tried to kill Ward, that was the very last time she saw him. She was a different person back then, dark hair with bangs, still so full of rage, Daisy wishes she would have pulled him aside back then and tried to tell him to stop. That he wasn’t this evil terrible person who deserved to be brain washed and abused his entire life, that she could help him recover from the trauma that was done to him.

She didn’t do that then, but she can now. So she steps up to the bar right next to Ward, sees him tense as she orders a beer. He looks the same of course, tan leather jacket, dark hair and stubble, those amber eyes that used to keep her up at night on the Bus in her bunk. Daisy spent so many sleepless evenings afterwards missing Agent Ward only to realize years later he wasn’t always lying, and the trick to working deep undercover is to be as truthful as possible.

Facing him silently the memories hit her just like they did back in the Framework reality. Clean smooth cheekbones, his fingers folding over hers to show how to shoot a gun, his laugh when they played Battleship, this time the good outshines the bad. Being with Shield so long Daisy has realized that if she were in Ward’s place back then and it was Coulson dying instead of John Garrett, she would have done the exact same thing Ward did.

Done anything and everything she had to in order to make sure Coulson survived, if that meant betraying a team of people, killing someone, she’d do it without hesitation. Which just goes to confirm something she’s known for a long time now, Grant and her have always been two sides of the same coin. He doesn’t look at her as she settles in the bar stool and checks every entry point just as he taught her all that time ago, fingers brushing against the ICER on her hip.

It’s funny how in his eyes she’s the same person he saw weeks ago, when in reality so many things have happened to Daisy in the years since they parted that would make his head spin. Instead of that ice bitterness creeping its way into her spine like it usually did whenever Ward was brought up, instead there’s sharp guilt pressing into her ribs, everything she could have done to help instead of stab him in the back. 

The bar tender hands her a beer and picks up on the energy between them but says nothing, finally Ward looks at her from the corner of his eye and she sees blood on his face. Kara’s, Bobbi’s or his own? Daisy doesn’t linger on that, doesn’t judge him for the scarlet on his skin because after all, their blood stained hands match now. The horrors and darkness she’s seen have not only shaped her into who she is, but have given her a new understanding at how gray the line can blur between how hard the right thing is to do.

Sometimes you have to make a choice, even at the sacrifice of yourself or someone else, to get a job done, Daisy has done that more times than she cares to admit. And after all, isn’t that what Ward did? How can she hate him for it when she doesn’t hate herself? Surprise flickers in those eyes at the state of her appearance, since the last time he saw her she was five, six maybe even seven years younger, the lines on her face, the damage in her eyes not as severe as they are now.

For a split second Daisy wonders if he’d prefer the Skye he knows to be here instead of her, if he sees her as nothing but a threat now. The Ward she met in the Framework understood and accepted her, trusted just a bit, will that happen here too? Or does he hate her now? Daisy and Ward never got closure before he died so she has no idea how he feels towards her, if what they once had on the Bus is gone now, faded into dust like so many other things.

_‘’Is it really that hard to see? It’s love’’._

Shaking off another ghost, Daisy takes a sip of her beer and doesn’t take her eyes off him.

‘’Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?’’

Now he gives her his full attention, though she can’t read what’s going through his head.

‘’Skye’’.

Her old name flows past his lips bringing with it a rush of longing, at what could have been, should have been, broken promises and wasted potential. 

‘’Ward’’.

When was the last time she even said his name? Daisy can’t remember, the Framework probably.

‘’Come to finish the job?’’

It takes her a second to remember he’s fresh from a fight and assumes Coulson sent her to kill him.

‘’No’’.

‘’Shame’’.

There’s what looks like a picture on the other side of his elbow, but before she can make out who is in it, it’s cleared away and tucked into his jacket.

‘’What are you doing here then?’’

She gestures towards the beer, his whiskey, and says, ‘’thought we could finally get that drink’’.

‘’Not in the mood’’.

‘’Come on, one drink won’t kill you’’.

‘’It might’’.

He’s never once viewed her as a threat, even though she has pointed a gun at him numerous times.

‘’Not in the mood for games Skye, whatever you’re here for get on with it’’.

‘’It’s Daisy’’.

He pauses at that and she clarifies, ‘’it’s Daisy now, my name’’.

Ward takes her in fully now, the long blonde hair, the tan leather jacket similar to his own though not intentional, the way she carries herself differently now.

‘’What happened to Skye?’’

‘’She’s still here’’.

He can obviously tell something is different about her, how odd this conversation must be for him since the last one they had she basically said how he was lucky if she didn’t try to kill him again.

Ward turns in the barstool so his entire body is facing her, knees nearly brushing her own.

‘’Well then, Daisy, if Coulson didn’t send you here to kill me, what the hell do you want?’’

It never occurred to her that Grant could be cold towards her, after everything he’s certainly entitled to it.

‘’I’m here because I wanted to apologize’’.

Nothing shifts in his face, there’s no shock or amusement, like he thinks she’s lying, there’s just a blank empty mask that she has no idea what to do with.

‘’For what? Shooting me, Simmons trying to kill me, for May murdering my girlfriend? If you’re here on Shield’s behalf’’-

‘’Shield didn’t send me Ward, I’m here because someone needs to tell you that not everything that happened with Garrett wasn’t your fault’’.

He freezes at the name of his dead mentor, they haven’t spoken about him in so long.

‘’The things you did, the things he made you do, that wasn’t on you. I didn’t get that before but’’-

‘’But you do now? If you’re here to cleanse your conscious take the pity party somewhere else, I don’t want to hear it’’.

‘’That’s not what I’’-

‘’I did terrible things and I’ve owned up to them, the last thing I need is for you to come in here with your holier than thou’’-

‘’Would you shut up and let me talk? God’’.

He takes a sip from his drink, hesitates and then nods for her to continue.

Taking a deep breath and thinking of everything she’s wanted to say but never got the chance, Daisy starts with, ‘’John Garrett abused and brain washed you, I’m sorry none of us saw that before’’.

‘’Little too late for that now’’.

‘’I’m hoping that’s not the case’’.

The weight of Ward’s betrayal, the shadow of what they could have had pours out all over the bar, sets into his skin and sighs its relief in her bones.

‘’You know you’re not the only one who was taken in by a powerful parental figure and though they were doing the right thing’’.

She briefly summarizes the tragedy of her parents and how Shield forgave her for betraying them without a second thought, how Coulson did the same to Mack and Bobbi.

Sadness pools and stretches in his face, he knows the only reason she joined Shield in the first place was to find her parents.

‘’And you’re not the only one who has done questionable things in the name of an organization, you’re not a bad guy Ward’’.

He scoffs now into his drink, ‘’I don’t know if you heard but I just tortured your friend’’.

‘’She didn’t deserve it, but I know you thought you were doing the right thing, getting closure for Kara’’-

‘’Revenge’’, he corrects, ‘’I was getting revenge for her’’.

‘’Sometimes in this life those mean the same thing’’.

Daisy understands that more than she’d like to admit.

His brows furrow in confusion, no doubt wondering what caused her to change her mind in the few short weeks , for him anyway, since they last spoke.

‘’But I’m long past hating you for any of it Ward’’.

She reaches out and touches his forearm like she did in Dublin in what feels like another life.

‘’What happened with your parents, with Garrett, Shield, Hydra and even Fitzsimmons, it wasn’t your fault’’.

Guilt enters his eyes at the mention of the two people who once trusted him with their lives.

‘’You thought the pod would float didn’t you?’’

Grant lets out a humorless laugh, shakes his head, ‘’you’re the last person I expected to believe me’’.

She shrugs, orders a second beer, ‘’I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I am so sorry for the things I said to you in Vault D, what I did when we were captured by Whitehall’’-

He waves her off, ‘’we don’t have to talk about that’’.

But she can see him clear as day now, his shocked expression as he fell to the ground, her bullets in his chest as she left him to die.

‘’I deserved it’’.

She squeezes his arm and he watches her hand like it’s a knife pressing into him, ‘’I wanted you to hurt the same way I did when I found out who you were, but you didn’t deserve that’’.

‘’You had a kill shot and didn’t take it, guess your aim hasn’t improved that much Rookie’’.

The old nickname spreads through her veins filling every cold part of her with warmth, she can’t tell if he meant to call her that or not.

If it was a slip up he doesn’t show it, instead asks, ‘’is that it?’’

She spoke these same words to a different version of him, but still means them all the same, ‘’I didn’t, I didn’t totally understand you until recently, and that there has been good in you all along’’.

The cold shoulder he’s been giving her melts away, that look he gave her back in that storage closet, in Providence, reappears and she aches. 

‘’I’m sorry Ward, for everything, and I wish I could have done it all differently, helped you instead of calling you a monster, because you aren’t’’.

Daisy has learned that if one person believes in someone it can make all the difference in the world, she tried that with Ruby and failed, but hopefully this doesn’t turn out the same way. She can tell no one has ever said this to him before, it makes her sad, he deserved a better life than the one that was given to him. Life dealt him shitty hand after shitty hand and it didn’t improve in her timeline, but maybe this right here can be the break he needs.

‘’I should have gotten you out of Vault D and with a therapist, and instead I shot you and held that over your head, you didn’t deserve that’’.

‘’I betrayed our entire team’’-

‘’Because Garrett brain washed you into it’’.

It’s a far cry from when she once told him, _‘’so Garrett is the reason you’re a cold blooded killer?’’_

Daisy removes her hand as he stares into the alcohol in his glass, ‘’I’m sorry too’’.

The words are a balm to the wound he once inflicted, and though it healed long ago, it’s still something she needed to hear.

Ward finishes his whiskey and just stares at her, ‘’you’re different’’.

‘’You have no idea’’.

It’s as if these words have been stored in a closet for so long collecting dust, and now that they are out it’s easier to breathe, like fresh air has finally entered her lungs.

‘’So that’s it? That’s all you came to say?’’

‘’Not exactly. What would you say to a second chance?’’

She couldn’t offer Framework Ward into her life, but she can with this one.

After all, Simmons did the same with Fitz.

Grant gives her a look of disbelief, and maybe a little hope, ‘’what?’’

‘’You heard me, what do you say?’’

Ward shakes his head and thumbs at the dried blood on his face, ‘’I am not a good person Daisy’’.

Tears fill her eyes at that, the way their story that survived heartbreak, betrayal and even death has come full circle, ‘’no, but you could be’’.

She lifts up her beer and nods at his freshly filled glass, ‘’you and me, wrong foot, can I buy you a drink?’’

And a smile she hasn’t seen in years, lights his face.

*

_August 12_ _ th _ _, 2021_

Daisy opens her eyes to a sun filled room, the sheets next to her empty, the smell of bacon cooking in the kitchen. A hot cup of coffee is waiting on the nightstand and she grabs it gratefully, looks around the room and smiles at the state of it. The dresser below the TV is filled with pictures of her and Ward, Fitzsimmons, Coulson and May, her sister Kora. The closet door is slightly open where his work shirts and her shoes reside, color has finally come back into her wardrobe.

The window to her left reveals another beautiful spring morning, birds are singing, the trees outside swaying with the early morning breeze. She curls further into the quilt and wonders where her boyfriend is, something she never thought would happen. Bu it turns out second chances can create really beautiful things, and what she and Ward have is the best thing in her life.

It’s like he never left, like Hydra was never even a part of their story. She offered him a chance to go back with her into her own timeline and he took it, there were a few awkward stumbles along the way but they made it. Shield forgave him as well as Fitzsimmons, Daisy eventually confessed she did as well. This is a new love, and old love, unfurling in her chest like a warm blanket. And in the year since she found him in that bar, Daisy has learned what it truly means to love someone more than yourself.

She’s never felt this way about anyone, ever, and she knows it’s Ward, there’s always been something about him, something between them that not even time or death could come between. With the help of a therapist Ward has also started to heal from the wounds his family, Garrett and Shield inflicted upon him, he’s the healthiest he’s ever been in his entire life. Their days are filled with happiness, hiking around the land on the property they own, courtesy of Coulson.

They live together in a cabin not too far from the Playground, a safe haven after missions, somewhere to go when the world is overwhelming and they can crawl into bed and hold one another. Daisy once thought Shield was her home but in reality it’s just a job, and Ward, this place they built together where they fall more in love every single day, is her home. After everything she’s been through, all the trauma and bloodshed, all the lies and fights and black eyes, split knuckles, she finally found somewhere to rest.

Someone to rest against, who understands all her burdens and flaws and accepts them, pulls her back when she’s hanging on the edge. Ward would say she does the same, forgave him when he didn’t deserve one, saved and believed in him when no one else in the world did. Having him back on the team again was an easier transition than she thought it would be, it took time but eventually it was like he went on an extended leave of absence and finally returned. 

That hole he left was finally filled and the Original Team Bus was finally together again, like they were when all this first started, when Coulson asked if she wanted a front row seat to the craziest show on earth. Kora is also a member and she and Daisy are building a relationship still, with the team’s encouragement and Ward’s, they’re becoming a family, sisters, that Jiaying and Cal would be proud of. Daisy is finally happy again, content, for the first time in her life.

One of the reasons for said happiness takes that moment to walk through the bedroom door, shirtless and carrying a tray filled with breakfast. His dark hair fluffed from the pillows, in black boxer briefs and bare feet, Daisy smiles at the look he gives her. Sitting up she tries to grab the tray but he places it across her lap instead and she tugs on his arm so he can lean down to her vantage point. Kissing him slowly, he cups the back of her neck, runs his fingers through her long blonde hair.

‘’Good morning’’.

‘’Morning’’.

He settles on his space on the bed as she surveys the food, cherry pancakes, bacon, another fresh cup of coffee, orange juice, butter and syrup.

Daisy grabs his shirt folded neatly on the edge of the bed, she has a faint memory of tossing it on the floor last night, and puts it on.

The gray Henley hangs over her shoulders and smells like him, ‘’did you eat already?’’

Before he can respond she’s shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth, ‘’what time do we have to leave?’’

He stretches out beside her, distracting her with the fine expanse of his muscles.

‘’It’s quiet today, Mack doesn’t have anything for us’’.

She grins in her coffee cup, off days are so rare for them and are usually spent in bed or outside.

Cutting into the pancakes she offers him a bite, then takes it for herself when he declines.

‘’I was thinking we could take Buddy and check out that new trail’’.

They rescued a chocolate lab months ago, Daisy had no idea Ward was a dog person until he cried in the car holding Buddy on the way home. Then he explained his past with Garrett and his first dog, and she held his hand tightly the rest of the day, as if one cue Buddy comes running into the room, headed straight for Ward, who laughs and rubs his head. Daisy reaches across to pet him and Buddy licks her hand, tail wagging as he makes a move for the food but Ward holds him back.

Buddy curls into Ward’s chest who never stops petting him, and while this is a scene that usually greets her every morning, it never gets old. Seeing Grant so carefree, she’s never seen him smile or laugh so much than he has this year, happiness looks perfect on him. He deserves it, they deserve it after everything they’ve been through. 

Grant’s fingers on her chin pull her out of her head, ‘’you okay?’’

When he moves his other hand to cup her face she kisses the inside of his palm, Buddy licks both their faces and she laughs, ‘’I’m just really happy’’.

A grin spreads across his lips, he knows all about what she’s gone through over the past eight years, every demon and skeleton, every crack and broken bit of her soul, and loves her anyway.

Kissing her forehead he replies, ‘’me too. I love you’’.

‘’I love you too’’.

He beams at that, no matter how many times she tells him this he always gets that same look on his face, as if the room is filled with fireworks.

It took him a while to understand her feelings, even longer to admit his own, but it was worth it. Everything they’ve been through was worth it in order to get to where they are now, right in this moment. She finishes eating and they drift off back to sleep, Daisy sprawled across his chest, then they shower together, get dressed and walk outside. Their land is backed by mountains, a field of daises (completely unintentional Ward swears) and a lake.

The sky is blue, the sun bright, Buddy sprints off ahead of them barking happily, Ward takes her hand, leans down to kiss her temple. All the pain, the bloodshed, the bruises and betrayal she’s experienced in her life, Daisy reflects on those moments that made her who she is, and doesn’t regret a single one. Because they all led to a kind of contentment, a kind of life and home she dreamed about as a kid, this is where it was all meant to end.

To a strong hurricane of a woman who has saved the world many times, a family and friends that accept her for who she is, somewhere to lay down when the world gets too dark. Her story started as an orphan feeling unwanted and abandoned, to a hacker searching for her parents, then to a Shield agent, an Inhuman with scars and battle wounds. She’s been shot, stabbed, ruined and broken to what seemed like beyond repair, lied to and betrayed, cheated and cast aside.

But it worked out in the end as most things do, and now she’s happier than she’s ever been, holding the hand of a man who has always been her other half, he just needed someone to show him he’s worth redemption, worth love and joy. Daisy stretches on her toes and kisses him, knows that it’s all going to be okay. Because he’s here and they’re together and the nightmares she has at night he soothes with soft hands and strong arms, he’s a rock in whatever storm crashes into her life.

She went from Mary-Sue, to Skye, Daisy, Quake, the Destroyer of Worlds, then just Daisy again. Her story started off in pain littered with bodies, broken bones and death in between, all to end here. In smiles and warm Sunday mornings naked in bed with Grant Ward, and she’s never been happier.

Grant kisses her back, hands cupping her face, and tells her he loves her with the sun shining down on them. 

Happiness in its most pure form right here in her arms, and she’s gone through so much to attain it. Is never letting it go again, because this, him, it was always meant to end this way, they were meant to be.

_‘’I’m no Clairvoyant, but I do believe some things are meant to be’’._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been toying with this idea for months and it finally came together, this is what should have happened in the show. But unfortunately the writers are stupid.
> 
> I like to think in an alternate timeline the events of this chapter actually take place, and Daisy and Ward are living happily ever after somewhere, just like they always deserved.


End file.
